kinouchou: &quot;Accessibility: my humble contribution&quot;

Note: I'm forwarding this note as asked by kinouchou to publish it on planet ubuntu (original note there, I didn't translate it either).

Since December 2009, I have joined the accessibility and free software group at APRIL (Association Promoting and protecting Free Software in France). I only later started to be interested by the Ubuntu Accessibility team. Why have I started with APRIL, even though I spend most of my time caring about Ubuntu, will you ask? Simply because this group is using french, and my english is really not that good (don't trust this note, it was translated by a friend), and, my current knowledge of accessibility being relatively limited, I tend not multiply difficulties.

The main goal of this group is absolutely not to develop software, but to know what software solutions exist and to match up those who may need it with those able to make the changes that could be needed. Then, the fact that I am joining so many event on behalf of Ubuntu-fr becomes a true asset. This is how people from the Fedora or OpenOffice.org are now joining us.

On the Ubuntu side, the team, which had been badly stalling, was gaining back a new life. UDS (Ubuntu Developer Summit) has given me the opportunity to meet a few people from the team and to understand its overall startegy. 3 meetings were realted to accessibility: one on GNOME, which has been way too technical for me, I will therefore bypass it for now. A second one was questioning how to give a new life to the team. The third one, the one which will be my focus today, was one organized jointly with the design team. During this meeting, we decided to work on GNOME themes which would match up the requirements and desires of those who have to live with a disability. One way to do so would involve developing a survey.

We obviously need as many responses as possible to make this survey relevant. I therefore proposed to spread this to French speaking countries via the APRIL Accessibility group. The survey will not be limited to Ubuntu, but will address free software in general, and as it matches APRIL's goals, it could, through it, be propagated to other communities. We aim to finish the development of this survey before the end of June, in order to start spread during the RMLL days (Libre Software Meeting days) which will happen from July 6th to 11th in Bordeaux (yes, they also make wine there). One of the two focus area of this event being Accessibility, which would be sad to miss.

Ubuntu-FR and the Mozilla Foundation Europe being often in touch, it is felt natural to include them in this process. When the survey will be ready, they will gladly help translate it to many other languages.
The efforts of the three groups can be joined and contributing together, it will prove once more what is very important to me in Free Software: collaboration.